Kennect Rapport & Drive 2.4 Troubleshooting

[lilliputian]

Feeling a bit gutted at the moment... After negotiating a very reasonable price with the seller, I was excited to receive a Kennect Rapport paired with the Kennect Drive 2.4 for use with my Mac Plus.

The packaging took a big fall at some point in transit between Alaska and California, but the damage inside appeared to be minimal. The Rapport looked fine, and the drive case, although crooked, was easily repaired after opening it up. I also resoldered a wire for the activity LED that had come undone (which I may well have done myself opening up the drive), and I cleaned the drive heads and tested the drive action with a travel diskette. I was careful to reassemble correctly; the drive cable isn't keyed, and can be inserted backwards, but I matched it to the reference photo I had taken before removing it.

I then installed the Rapport 1.2 drivers found on the Garden, trying with both Systems 7.0 and 6.0.8, but to no avail. The Rapport isn't being seen at startup (extension says "Not Installed" at boot), and the Drive 2.4 doesn't seem to work without it. I even opened up the Rapport itself (surprisingly easy, the cover is only held on with friction on some pegs), and it looks okay inside as well. My first try with everything set up, the LED flickered briefly, but on subsequent attempts it remains dark.

 

[lilliputian]

If you've ever been curious about the insides of a Drive 2.4 or a Kennect Rapport, well, now's your chance to see...

 

[retr01]

This is an interesting write-up of the Kennect 2.4 Drive.

Drive 2.4 Details

 

[lilliputian]

It would be handy to have for reading/writing PC-DOS 720k floppies, as well as Mac & PC 1.44MB floppies on the Plus, but only if it works...

 

[retr01]

And look what I found in the May 1989 issue of MacUser!

 

[retr01]

It would be handy to have for reading/writing PC-DOS 720k floppies, as well as Mac & PC 1.44MB floppies on the Plus, but only if it works...

It can do 2.4 MB, too. Hmmm.

 

[lilliputian]

It has special proprietary formats for putting 1.2MB on 800k disks, and 2.4MB on 1.4MB disks. I have no plans to use them however.

 

[lilliputian]

(Hence the name: Drive 2.4)

 

[retr01]

I even opened up the Rapport itself (surprisingly easy, the cover is only held on with friction on some pegs), and it looks okay inside as well. My first try with everything set up, the LED flickered briefly, but on subsequent attempts it remains dark.

What about some solder joints showing poor soldering on the disk drive board? I saw burnt joints on the side at the end where to connect the drive.

 

[lilliputian]

Do you mean the two wires coming off the side? That's just flux residue.

 

[lilliputian]

Well, a clue perhaps:

With everything connected (Rapport & Drive 2.4), if a floppy happens to be inserted in the Drive 2.4, it will eject it when powering on the Mac for the first time, but not on subsequent restarts. The Rapport is still not being seen, but this indicates that: power is passing through, and the drive itself is probably okay.

 

[lilliputian]

Experiment 2: When connected directly to the floppy port of the Mac (meaning, the Rapport is not used at all), the Drive 2.4 does not eject an inserted diskette at boot, seemingly indicating that it only receives power through the Rapport...

 

[lilliputian]

On a lark, I added additional solder to the main connector of the Rapport (it was very undersoldered in my opinion), but to no avail. Meanwhile, there's a crystal oscillator that should measure 16MHz, but with my meter on frequency mode I turned on the Plus with the naked Rapport connected and measured the crystal and it measured between 26 and 28MHz which seems... incorrect. Perhaps the drop it received in shipment chipped or cracked the crystal? I suppose it can't hurt to order a new oscillator and give it a shot.

 

[lilliputian]

Whelp, unfortunately, the replacement crystal did not solve the problem. It exhibits the same symptoms as before (including the connected Drive 2.4 ejecting an inserted diskette on a cold boot).

So I guess it's just fancy decoration unless someone happens to have a working Rapport to compare signals with mine. I am ill-equipped to do any kind of deep logic analysis or anything like that, all I've got is a meter.